


Meaning and Choice

by nerdyostrich, tiddlypom



Series: Sofia and Lizzie Do Philosophy [1]
Category: Original Work, Philosophy - Fandom
Genre: Choice, Gen, Meaning, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdyostrich/pseuds/nerdyostrich, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiddlypom/pseuds/tiddlypom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first of a regular series of philosophical discussions. This explores right and wrong, the point of life (if there is one), and how we can make choice based on this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meaning and Choice

**Author's Note:**

> (Dialogue may or may not be linear).
> 
> (Assuming we trust our sensory perceptions in the first place).

_What's the point?_

There isn't one, we've been over this. You don't need a point, doing something is just better than doing nothing right?

_Right? What even is right? What is good? It's all just stuff._

Good and bad are relative, all that keeps them together is human intuition and feeling.

_Feeling! Some little chemicals?_

Momentous chemicals. Happiness, love, hope.

_If these chemicals are the key, then why don't we all just take happy pills and be done with it? That's not how it works is it?!_

Okay, I take your point. Perhaps then the emphasis should be placed upon the means to the feelings then. Experience, human experience, and its breadth.

_Experience has no connotation with good or bad though, if experience is the point then how do we decide between experiences? By that logic, does bad have the same value as good?_

What is value? Essentially, it is how good something is. But again, I take your point. Good cannot exist without bad; you may argue that the taste of broccoli has no effect of the taste of chocolate but broccoli and chocolate are not a dichotomy. Good and evil is.

_Surely, if good and bad are relative, it's more of a spectrum than a dichotomy?_

Not necessarily, but I agree with the statement. However good to evil is a linear spectrum, as opposed to chocolate and broccoli, which does not in any way encompass all foods. Good and bad, however, can be applied to everything.

_But "good is just as valuable as bad," that's an oxymoron, it makes no sense._

That's not what I said. We value good over evil, but for good to exist evil must be ever present. And our point is to fight for good over evil. Think of nature, an Eco system. It's balanced, harmonious. Yet the antelope are in conflict with the lions, they do not want to be eaten but they must be, to retain the balance. Nature fights for balance, we fight for good.

_We can't beat nature though, what's the point in fighting what we cannot beat?_

Who says we cannot beat it?

_We cannot separate ourselves from nature though, our nature must seek balance and so ultimately conflict?_

We humans undeniably crave conflict, but not consciously I think. The conflict is there, and so we fight.

_Tell me again, how do we distinguish between what is good and bad then?_

Feeling. What feels good, and what makes others feel good. We have nothing more tangible than that.

_This whole fighting for good thing, it sounds an awful lot like God and Satan._

True, but in religion, good and evil are fixed. By my reasoning, they are relative.

_Then surely nature can find this flaw, and make one person's good, another's evil and hence conflict?_

You make nature sound like an entity, but I understand. Right may not always be what you think it is, perhaps that is another point, to understand "right." Always be prepared to revaluate your perspective.

_Okay, so how do I know if I'm wrong now?_

You don't, that is the test.

_Okay, I'm starting to see it. But wait, if it’s all experience and finding our own values again and again, what of activity and creativity? Experience sounds do dreadfully passive, there’s an element of choosing action, right?_

Creativity; what is creativity? Is it different to destruction? I think not. The laws of physics state that nothing can be created or destroyed. Only form is changed. For example, we create hydrogen, but in doing so destroy the water.

_So how do we determine if this process is creation or destruction? If we do at all?_

We only know that it is change. We can define creation and destruction with value again, which is better, the hydrogen or the water? It’s what we choose it to be.

_But wait, you said “the laws of physics”, have we just accepted that as fact? I thought there were no ultimate truths?_

To answer this, I’m going to quote a favourite book of mine: “The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton... and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either. Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Law of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts.” Thus, you are right, it is not ultimate, nor a truth, but a ghost. In our heads, as everything really is. It simply illustrated my point well.

_So thus, we do something rather than nothing, feel what is right, we choose our actions and creations and experiences on that. There is no ultimate truth, only ghosts, and the ones we prefer. And nothing that we’ve just said could mean anything at all._


End file.
